As any great sales person will tell you, sales is not about a great product or service, it’s about the customer’s perception of value.
By Ed Pierce, It’sTheArts.com
For fleet decision-makers, value is helping to maximize the contribution of his fleet to the company’s strategic goals as well as the savings derived from controlling costs.
Even if the company has been an industry leader for 100 years, insists that every manager earn a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, regularly wins prestigious “Best of” awards, and reports fantastical total customer savings every quarter … even with all of that, it’s important that you understand how to differentiate your value proposition in terms that are meaningful to the customer – because that’s the real key to winning and keeping business.
As explained in the last column, “earned media opportunities” — print and digital advertising, public relations, trade shows, direct mail – are important tactics for telling the value story. Yet, many times that story gets lost in translation, especially in advertising.
Here are three common examples readily identifiable in most trade magazines representing every industry:
1. Smugness (The “Top of the Mountain” View) – The message: “We are XYZ company, the industry leader, with the best people, the best service, and the best technology.”
The Hype: The name says it all! A fleet manager can be confident that this company’s “star-power” will rub off on him or her. It is the safest bet even without substantive proof.
2. Product “Featurette” – The message (an exaggeration): “Our G-Wiz gizmo uses a proprietary motionless thermo-nuclear generator that snatches free energy from a vacuum to deliver pre-real-time data.”
The Hype: Dazzling product features will blind fleet managers into thinking a company has the best product or service despite the lack of benefits or real-world application.
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